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Don't Just Blog - Blog It To Courseware

Here's an idea for academic libraries that have or are considering a library blog. A library blog can be a great marketing tool, but only if students read it, and my research shows that most students will not voluntarily subscribe to a library blog - and many are not yet familiar with the necessary technology tools to allow that. Instead, take advantage of technology that lets you push your blog postings to your campus courseware. That way, whenever students go to their course sites, which they do frequently, they'll see your library blog postings. You can get more information about the technology that allows this, and some findings from an informal research study that gathered data on student use of an academic library blog and student knowledge of blogs, RSS and aggregators. This information comes from a poster session conducted at the 2005 ALA conference. The handout from the session and the poster - which will provide all the information you need to replicate this idea - can be found at:
[1] - just scroll down to the presentations area - and look for the links to the ALA 2005 poster session material.